Those unprovided therewith are smaller and less spirited and
never fight, while the others are big and courageous; and these
latter, by some, are called males, and the stingless, females. At
the approach of winter many of the wasps that have stings appear to
lose them; but we have never met an eyewitness of this phenomenon.
Wasps are more abundant in times of drought and in wild localities.
They live underground; their combs they mould out of chips and
earth, each comb from a single origin, like a kind of root. They
feed on certain flowers and fruits, but for the most part on animal
food. Some of the tame wasps have been observed when sexually
united, but it was not determined whether both, or neither, had
stings, or whether one had a sting and the other had not; wild wasps
have been seen under similar circumstances, when one was seen to
have a sting but the case of the other was left undetermined. The
wasp-grub does not appear to come into existence by parturition, for
at the outset the grub is too big to be the offspring of a wasp. If
you take a wasp by the feet and let him buzz with the vibration of his
wings, wasps that have no stings will fly toward it, and wasps that
have stings will not; from which fact it is inferred by some that
one set are males and the other females.
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